Death Row
by LadyElaine
Summary: Riddick is sentenced to death.


Title: Death Row  
  
Author: LadyElaine  
  
Rating: R for language and adult themes  
  
Disclaimer: The characters and situations of "Pitch Black" belong to USA Films and David Twohy.  
  
Summary: Riddick is sentenced to death.  
  
Archive: Sure. Just let me know first.  
  
Author's Note: The problem of capital punishment doesn't have an easy answer.  
  
  
  
Death Row  
  
I don't want to die.  
  
That's the first thing I think every morning when I wake up, and every night before I go to sleep. If I sleep. Why the hell did we move back to Earth? I'll tell you: it's a human zoo. I thought I could hide better here. Too many countries, cities, too many people to hunt through. Sure, I could hide from the cops, from the mercs; but I couldn't hide from myself.  
  
I didn't see the photo album. I didn't see the pencils and notebooks and homework scattered all over the place. I didn't see the casual smiles they both wore. What I saw was Jack and a boy I didn't know. What I saw was them sitting together, shoulder to shoulder and knee to knee, on Jack's bed. I'm not going to make any excuses. Nobody would believe them, anyway- -least of all me.  
  
Jack's screams--"He's just a friend! Just a friend from school, Riddick!"-- didn't register. Or maybe they did, and I just didn't care.  
  
"Are you fucking her, boy? I hope she was good, 'cause that's the last time your dick's gonna be wet." His skinny neck snapped easily. Then I turned on Jack.  
  
The trial was a sham, of course. Exactly what I expected. I had a whole team of the best damn defense attorneys, all trying to beef up their reputations off my name. It didn't matter. They wanted to move the trial venue, but where could they move it? There's no place that doesn't know about Richard B. Riddick. I was convicted of one count of second degree murder, one count of aggravated assault. By law, I shouldn't have gotten death. It didn't matter. I guess I've set a new precedent. My lawyers wanted to appeal, but I told them not to bother. They did anyway. The appeal was overturned, of course. It didn't matter.  
  
I don't want to die.  
  
When they brought me in, they stripped me bare and searched me. "Bend over and crack a smile." Prison humor. I asked for reading material, and they gave me a bible. Fucking Jesus freaks. They expect us all to be saved before they kill us. The graveyard is nothing but a bunch of crosses. Each one bears a number instead of a name. More prison humor.  
  
In some prisons, they hang you. In others, they have the chair. I've heard that some prisons still use firing squads; maybe those are military prisons, I don't know. Some places still have the gas chamber; I once saw the eaves of a prison wall rippling behind the poison gas coming out of the big pipe. Somebody died that day. They're going to strap me down and stick a needle in my arm. They call it humane, as if we're all animals to be euthanized. But I'm not an animal. The day they sentenced me, I saw the bruises I'd left all over Jack's face. Animals don't do that.  
  
That was the last time I saw her. I don't blame her for not visiting me. There's not much to see. They only let you shower every three days. They don't even let me shave--not till my execution day. Not till I see Jack again. At least I'll look good.  
  
Imam comes to visit a lot. The guards finally stopped giving him shit, I think. The first time he came to see me, the first thing out of his mouth was, "I forgive you. God forgives you." Crazy holy man.  
  
I asked, "Does Jack forgive me?" He won't look me in the eye much, anymore. Guess that answers my question.  
  
For my last meal, I picked chef salad. It's Jack's favorite. I don't know if I thought it would taste like dust, it being my last, or be all the sweeter. It tasted like lettuce and tomato and chicken and cheese. Should I have been disappointed?  
  
They stick you in a holding cell before you go to the execution chamber. There was one window, too high up to see out of, but I could hear outside. Somebody was holding a vigil. I imagined forty or fifty people outside-- normal everyday, people--standing there holding candles. The warden said they were there to protest the execution. They were singing "Amazing Grace". I guess it takes all sorts.  
  
The thing about execution, see, is that you know. You wake up every morning knowing. You sit in your cell every day, trying to find something to do to make the clock in your head stop ticking. Four days till I die. Three days. Two days. One day.  
  
Today.  
  
The executioners are behind a wall with the IV bags. You don't get to see who's killing you. But I can see the witnesses through the window. Most of them I don't know. A couple of my attorneys. Imam's there. So is Jack. God, she looks beautiful.  
  
The warden asks me if I want to make a final statement. "Go to hell." That's what I meant to say. What comes out instead is: "I'm sorry, Jack."  
  
They stick in two needles, not one. That's in case there's a problem with one. I remember the last time I had an IV. The nurse smiled at me and said, "Just a stick and a sting, and then it's all over."  
  
I don't want to die.  
  
-End-  
  
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I'd like to thank Ardath Rekha for writing a companion piece to this story. Her "Where Silence and Death Meet" is written from Jack's point of view. Read it here at ff.n, or at: www.vindiesel.co.uk/cgi- bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=4;t=000430 


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